Forget an escape to Canada — look to the south

Mexico City celebrates International Yoga day (officially June 21, but celebrated in Mexico City on June 25). India’s ambassador to Mexico, Muktesh Pardeshi, takes part in an outdoor yoga class.

Photo: BERNARDO MONTOYA, AFP/Getty Images

Dear Mexico City:

You are beautiful, urban and hip. You are bohemian, subtle and romantic.

In the Colonia Roma neighborhood, your sophisticated couples eat vegan muffins and croissants at cafes. They read books, not just iPhones — just as Jack Kerouac did when he visited and wrote his epic poem “Mexico City Blues.”

In the Condesa neighborhood, young hipsters sip espresso on benches along tree-lined boulevards. They listen to live music and walk past street art on their way to the gym. They must think the United States is so far away from their cosmopolitan happiness as they laugh with friends and smile at the perfect sunshine.

Your anthropology museum in Chapultepec Park is stunning, and that’s just the museum’s architecture, let alone the emblems of civilization that you share with visitors inside.

I would travel thousands of miles again to eat Oaxacan guacamole with chapulines at Yuban, or seafood at La Docena, or chilaquiles anywhere.

I would travel thousands more miles to attend your International Day of Yoga celebration. Every June, you shut down the main thoroughfare for a government-sponsored yoga session where hundreds of people practice hatha in front of the U.S. Embassy. And when you meditate in front of our Embassy, wish us peace and send us love. We could use it.

Your Supreme Court building is the only public structure in the world (aside from Robben Island Prison in South Africa) where official art openly criticizes the government. Interior murals, hundreds of meters long, depict corrupt judges alongside scenes of unresolved rape, torture and police brutality. Your esteemed justices walk past these images on their way to the office, the toilet and the court chamber itself.

Your famous university, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), enjoys UNESCO World Heritage status, and your annual gay pride celebration is one of the world’s largest. Protect these places from foreigners who believe they hold the brightest beacon of equality and freedom.

Every Sunday morning, all year long, you shut down your main boulevard to cars and traffic so that Mexican families may safely ride bicycles, walk dogs and go jogging. Smiling children hold balloons while rollerblading couples whisk past.

Mexico City, I am perilously close to overstaying a tourist visa to enjoy your cafes, your restaurants, your universities, your boulevards, your government-sponsored mural projects and yoga days, and your delicious food. Like me, Americans may soon realize that north is not the only direction to look if America falls. Your Instituto Nacional de Migracíon Web page may collapse when we realize Canada is too cold and Spanish is easily learned.

You might need to consider building a wall on your northern border — to keep us out.

Sincerely yours,

Mark

Mark Massoud is an associate professor of politics and legal studies at UC Santa Cruz. He visited Mexico to attend the annual conference of the U.S.-based Law and Society Association.